The present invention relates to a belt conveyor transportation system which utilizes magnetic attraction as a hauling force for moving a traveling member or members.
Recently, a continuous transportation system of the type which is always moved continuously without interruption at speeds higher than a predetermined speed and falling within a certain speed range of between 20 and 60 km/hr, for example, has been advocated as a city communication and transportation system which occupies a reduced space and capable of mass transportation. However, if such a continuous transportation system is constructed on the principle of a conveyor belt, the resulting system has various disadvantages that the maximum speed is limited to a low value due to the limited capacity of the belt conveyor itself, that when it is desired to somewhat decelerate transport cars while going up or down a grade or while going round a curved section in a horizontal direction, the speed of the transport cars while passing from one to another of the continuously arranged units of the belt conveyor cannot be changed so greatly that it is necessary to use a large number of shorter units in order to provide the desired deceleration or acceleration within the specified line, and so on. Further, in order that people may get on and off or goods may be loaded or unloaded from the transport cars of the continuous transportation system at a stationary or stopping place on the ground, for example, without causing a shock due to the difference in speed between the cars and the stop, it is necessary to use a transfer junction device having a speed changing function for gradually reducing the relative speed difference between the cars and the device, namely, a variable speed junction device (hereinafter referred to as an integrator) having a function so that the speed difference between the cars of the continuous transportation system and a stationary place on the ground or the like is extended in time so as to accelerate or decelerate the people or goods with the permissible desired positive or negative acceleration to permit the people to get on and off the cars or the loading and unloading of the goods. While, as an example of such integrator, a mechanism has been generally conceived in which belt conveyors are combined in a multi-stage arrangement so that the speeds of the stages differ from one another and thus the speed of the mechanism is changed stepwise, it has been considered that the mechanism must be specially designed so as to preset the steplike different speeds to the conveyors as desired, and this results in a complicated structure. Namely, the integrator includes five sections, i.e., the first constant speed section movable at a constant speed which permits people, e.g., pedestrians to get on or goods to be loaded on the cars easily from the stationary place on the ground or the like, the acceleration section connected to said constant speed section, the second constant speed section which is connected to said acceleration section and permits easy transfer of people or goods to the cars of the continuous transportation system that are continuously moving at a constant speed higher than a predetermined speed, and a deceleration section which is connected to the second constant speed section to continuously join it to the third constant speed section moving at a constant speed which permits easy transfer of the people or goods from the cars to a stationary place, that is, if the speeds of the first and third constant speed sections are the same, the integrator is roughly divided into four sections of different speeds, and consequently the speed variation around the junction point between the other conveyors in the acceleration and deceleration sections and between the respective sections must be preset so that the positive or negative acceleration is limited to lower than the permissible absolute value for both people and goods, namely, less than about 10.051 g. As a result, due to these restrictions to the steplike different speeds between the adjoining conveyors forming the integrator, the construction of the integrator becomes complicated and large, though this is affected by the traveling speed of the cars on the continuous transportation system.